Hi Guys:
Well, the building of the platform in a box is underway.
. ( pics later ) , and Im working on the inket printing head that
I plan to hang from the gantry.
I got an HP1000 printer from walmart and tore it apart. It has very few parts really that are important
. I should probably have played with it software-wise first to see if I can fool it to do the required things in software, but decided insterad to see if I can build the inkjet into a box that I can hang, with the jet head hanging down to print on powder.. ( or t-shirts ) at any size the gantry can dictate.
So.. after removing all the parts, I discover the only real impedimen
t to making the injet a replaceme
nt for a cnc spindle.. is the little motor that drives the carriage back and forth. It hangs down.. not good.
Picture one shows the injet assembly laying on a plexi face plate that will form the
bottom of the box. The motor has been removed and moved to the back of the carriage. ( it used to be bolted in that round hole in the base plate upside down. ) This leaves the bottom flat with the inkjet the lowest point on the carriage.
The following pictures show how the motor has been moved and the belt reconnect
ed to the carriage. The motor wires are reversed to make the motor run backwards as its now upside down to its normal position.
The last photo shows whats left. A circuit board, a paper drive motor and its encoder wheel, and two opto sensors.. one for paper in, and one for paper out. Once I put all this back together I'll see if I can write a driver that can print one line of output at a time on command. The theory being that this box will replace a spindle on a mill, and thus be able to print any picture to the width and length of a cnc driven gantry in single line prints at differing positions
.
Ill post more photos as I go, and will let you know if its all a waste of time due to firmware limitatio
ns, or if I can fool it to be what I want it to be.

Price so far:
HP1000 printer: $28.00 Canadian.
Acrylic sheet $20.00 Canadian.
Access to LAser: priceless
.

Art